1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a liquid crystal display, and more particularly to a liquid crystal display device and a driving method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a liquid crystal display (LCD) controls the light transmittance of liquid crystal using an electric field, to thereby display a picture. To this end, the LCD includes a liquid crystal display panel having a pixel matrix, and a driving circuit for driving the liquid crystal display panel. The driving circuit drives the pixel matrix such that picture information can be displayed on the display panel.
FIG. 1 is a block circuit diagram of a liquid crystal display according to a related art. Referring to FIG. 1, the related art LCD includes a liquid crystal display panel 2, a data driver 4 for driving data lines DL1 to DLm of the liquid crystal display panel 2, and a gate driver 6 for driving gate lines GL1 to GLn of the liquid crystal display panel 2. The liquid crystal display panel 2 includes thin film transistors (TFT), each of which is provided at each crossing of the gate lines GL1 to GLn and the data lines DL1 to DLm. Liquid crystal cells are electrically connected to the TFTs and are arranged to form a matrix.
The gate driver 6 sequentially applies a gate signal to each gate line GL1 to GLn in response to a control signal from a timing controller (not shown). The data driver 4 converts R, G and B data from the timing controller into analog video signal to thereby apply video signals for one horizontal line to the data lines DL1 to DLm during each horizontal period when a gate signal is applied to each gate line GL1 to GLn.
The TFT applies a data from the data lines DL1 to DLm to the liquid crystal cell in response to a control signal from the gate lines GL1 to GLn. The liquid crystal cell can be represented by a liquid crystal capacitor Clc because it includes a common electrode and a pixel electrode facing each other and having liquid crystal between them. The pixel electrode is connected to the TFT. The liquid crystal cell includes a storage capacitor (not shown) connected to a pre-stage gate line in order to keep a data voltage charged in the liquid crystal capacitor Clc until the next data voltage is charged therein.
The number of vertical lines formed by the liquid crystal cells in the related art LCD is equal to the number (i.e., m) of the data lines DL1 to DLm because they are provided at crossings of the gate lines GL1 to GLn and the data lines DL1 to DLm. In other words, the liquid crystal cells are arranged in a matrix to form an m-number of vertical lines and an n-number of horizontal lines.
The related art LCD requires m data lines DL1 to DLm to drive the liquid crystal cells having m vertical lines. Thus, the related art LCD requires m/i data driver integrated circuits (wherein “i” is the number of data output lines provided by one data integrated circuit) in order to drive the m-number of data lines. Therefore, as a resolution of the LCD increases, the number of data drivers integrated circuits, which are costly, increases. Moreover, process time for attaching the driver integrated circuit and manufacturing cost of the LCD also increases.